Canadians need not apply: Canada 150 Research Chairs at Canadian universities

Raymond B. BlakeRegina Leader-Post

Published on: July 27, 2017 | Last Updated: July 28, 2017 1:00 PM CST

With the rules of the Canada 150 Research Chairs program, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is telling young Canadian university scholars that they are not good enough to be considered among the brightest in the world, argues Raymond Blake.DARRYL DYCK / THE CANADIAN PRESS

Canadian universities have begun interviews to fill Canada 150 Research Chairs, a $117.6-million initiative by the government of Canada to commemorate the sesquicentennial of Confederation. It is a good investment, but scholars living in Canada are excluded. Only foreign-trained and Canadian expatriates can apply.

The government has set the Canada 150 chairs for seven-year terms at either $350,000 or $1 million per year, depending on rank. The recruitment for those positions was to be fast, Minister of Science Kristy Duncan said, and guided by the government’s commitment to equity and diversity. When the government decides to invest in research and scholarship to commemorate our founding in 1867 and “build a prosperous country and grow the middle class” in Duncan’s own words, we have also decided to exclude Canadians and turn to outsiders because Canada’s best and brightest aren’t good or bright enough, it seems.

The initiative is purely political, part of Justin Trudeau’s plan to showcase Canada internationally as a welcoming place, quite different from what he sees as the closed worlds of Theresa May’s United Kingdom and Donald Trump’s America. Unfortunately, Trudeau is playing politics in a manner that is also a slap in the face to young women and men right here. He does not believe they have the talent needed to make Canada’s universities world-class.

Trudeau is telling our young graduates that they are not good enough to be considered among the brightest in the world. As the minister of youth and prime minister, did he not make youth one of the themes for Canada 150 commemorations? Yet, he is now telling Canada’s young scholars they must stand aside so foreign-trained researchers can teach in their universities. It is not as if these bright women and men from our graduate programs have many other opportunities. Advertisements for university positions regularly draw dozens of applications and hundreds of our scholars are either underemployed or unemployed. Many have left the academic world.

Excluding young Canadian scholars at a time when they need opportunities is only one of the problems with the Canada 150 program.

There is no evidence to suggest the brightest minds at Harvard, Oxford, MIT and other leading international schools are eager to vacate their posts for Saskatoon, Sherbrooke or St. John’s. Even if potentially bright minds are withering away in the U.K. or U.S., eager to seek refuge in Canada, why not have them compete with the brightest minds in Canada? Because of the Trudeau government’s exclusion of Canadians it is possible universities may be forced to select professors from second- or third-rate international institutions. By imposing exclusionary policies for the Canada 150 research chairs, Duncan might actually be weakening the quality of our universities. And, ironically, some of those Canadians who are being excluded now may be recruited to work in the U.S.A. and be lost to Canada forever.

It is ironic, too, that Trudeau is travelling the world encouraging international students to come to Canada for a world-class university education at a time when he believes we can’t find the brain power at home to help further the country’s reputation as a global centre of excellence in science, research and innovation.

That the government could launch a program designed exclusively for international scholars when we are celebrating our accomplishments — and acknowledging our failures — is not only shameful and lamentable but also echoes of a lingering colonial mentality. This is not 1867 or even 1967 when Canada needed internationally trained scholars for its expanding university sector. Today, our universities are graduating researchers who rival those anywhere in the world, and we should not be excluding them from prestigious competitions to find professors trained elsewhere to educate the next generation of Canadians.

Trudeau could have taken the $117.6 million and funded 250 or more Canada 150 professorships for young scholars for seven years (the length of tenure for the Canada 150 chairs now being advertised). Such a program would have allowed universities to hire recent PhDs at decent salaries and break the cycle of despair that is demoralizing graduate education in Canada. Such a program would have stimulated and reinvigorated Canada’s struggling university sector and launched a great legacy project for Canada 150. Doing so would have also given some real evidence to Trudeau’s frequent claim that he will invest to create more jobs and better opportunities for Canada’s young people.

Raymond B. Blake is professor of history and a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)-funded researcher at the University of Regina.

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